23 April 2008

Let the good times roll

It was good times with the birthday girls over the weekend. We all went out for nice dinner on Friday night -- even though Ali had a glass of water spilled in her lap and our server heard "ravioli" instead of "stromboli." It was all good in the end -- and most importantly, we had a good time together.

The girls were all here on Sunday night for a cookout, and then Nana & Joe came over to share cake and ice cream. Mmmm. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and real vanilla ice cream. Katie was in charge of putting candles on the cake. She used 21 candles to form an "A" for Ali, 23 candles to make a "K" for Katie, and 17 candles made an "M" for Maddy. It took three people, busy with matches, to get them all lit in a timely fashion.

This morning, the 17yo was preparing to hop into the shower and was freaked out by a spider in the tub. It was big and black and "had suction cups" and she needed her dad to take care of it. It definitely was a big, icky spider -- I don't know the name of it, but it makes a tunnel-y web outside and moves lightning FAST -- I would have called for help, too! I thought about the 23 and 21 and wondered how they're dealing with that sort of thing these days. I know they're just dealin', because there comes a day when we all have to do it on our own.

The little kid's blanket is coming along! The question asked while knitting out last night was, "How long are you gonna keep it on the straights?" My reply was, "As long as I can." I may be nearing the limit. I didn't really plan the colors, just sort of grabbed a ball of yarn from the bag at random as I went along. I would do it differently if I were to do it again... and I may have enough yarn to do it again, or I may do something else entirely. It goes to show how long it's been since I've actually blogged about knitting that I forgot to mention the most fundamental information about this project. The yarn is Classic Elite "Bubbles," I'm using 11US needles (so it's going pretty fast), and working a log cabin design off the top of my head. I wove in a bunch of ends at one point, then decided to just knit the ends in as I go along.

Ina, the Jersey Knitter, is once again and very generously sponsoring an "I" Contest for ABC-Along 2008. Yours truly won the 2006 version with a fun entry about Individuals. I am judging with Ina this time around and am therefore exempt; her prizes are so luscious, though, that I'm considering an entry entitled: I is for Incognita. Ina's posted all the easy-to-follow rules and regulations in her entry linked above and also on Ravelry and Flickr. Have some fun with it!!

I love that photo of your girls! This is the time of the year when my girls go into catch up, with Gillian turning 23 in May, Erin 17 in August and Meg will be 21 in December. Then we'll have kids the same ages for a few months again.

Happy Birthday to all your beautiful girls! And congrats to you for every year, too!